


And I will make no peace today

by sevendeadlyfun



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 19:52:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3459845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevendeadlyfun/pseuds/sevendeadlyfun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Since before my first blood,” she continues, tracing the outline of the necklace, “many men have tried to own me. Do you think I do not recognize a yoke when it is placed around my neck?”</i>. A might-be look at how Lagertha really feels about King Ecbert's gift during S3 E2 "The Wanderer".</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I will make no peace today

After the meal, she asks him to tell King Ecbert that she is weary. Many long days preparing the land have left her tired. King Ecbert nods, an eager smile on his face, and bids her a pleasant sleep. She nods once to Princess Judith and leaves the hall. She does not look back. She does not need to – he follows her without command.

As they walk towards her sleeping chamber, her hands taps against the heavy metal hanging against her collarbone. Athelstan stares, brow furrowed, at the almost thoughtless movement of her hand. The taps are light but she seems not notice them. Her face is turned up, eyes fixed on the dying light streaming through the slits in the walls.

“It is a fine gift,” he says as they reach the door of her chamber.

She shakes her head as she opens the door. “It is a collar.”

She does not trouble to lower her voice. Who here will understand her but him? He closes the door behind him just the same. These words, no matter how unintelligible to the local ears, should be private.

“Since before my first blood,” she continues, tracing the outline of the necklace, “many men have tried to own me. Do you think I do not recognize a yoke when it is placed around my neck?”

 “The King respects you, my lady. More, he admires you,” Athelstan says.

“So he says.” Her shoulders lift once and drop, her hand touching the metal around her throat. “So my last husband said. Lagertha, shield-maiden of such renown, taken to wife is quite a prize. They see a wild thing in me, Athelstan. Do you know what men who seek the wilderness wish?”

He shakes his head. He has never sought the wilderness. Without Ragnar, without the strangeness of gods and fate, he would still be at Lindisfarne with his prayers and his rituals and his pens.

“They wish to mold the wilderness to their hands.” She turns to look at him, holding the necklace out away from her skin. “They wish for wolves to sit tame at their feet, for ravens to sing sweetly in their ears. When the wild thing they seek obeys its nature, when it bites or claws its way back to freedom?”

She releases the necklace and it drops against her breast.

“They kill it,” she says, voice thick. “King Ecbert wishes to own me, as he owns the strange treasures you showed me the other night.”

“And Ragnar?” Athelstan asks. “What of Ragnar?”

She smiles at that, shaking her head. “Ragnar is Ragnar. He is not other men. This, you know.”

“Did he not try to own you?”

“Never,” she tells him. “As he did not truly wish to own you, so he did not wish to own me. Ragnar has his own wildness. He did not need to consume mine.”

 “Now,” she continues, sweeping her hair to once side, “take this off me. I will not wear it to the farm."

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the poem [Ishtar Awakens in Chicago](http://theblogar.blogspot.de/2012/12/you-should-be-so-lucky.html) by **Mohja Kahf**.


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